Genoese colonies

File:THEODOSIA 01.jpg in Crimea.]]

During the Early Middle Ages, Genoa was a small, poor fishing village of 4,000 inhabitants. By slowly building its merchant fleet, it rose as the leading commercial carrier of the Western Mediterranean, starting to become independent from the Holy Roman Empire around the 11th century. A meeting of all the city's trade associations (compagnie) and the noble lords of the surrounding valleys and coasts eventually signaled the birth of Genoese government. The then-born city-state was known as Compagna Communis. The local organization maintained a political and social significance for centuries.{{Cite book|last=Mallone Di Novi|first=Cesare Cattaneo|title=I "Politici" del Medioevo genovese: il Liber Civilitatis del 1528|year=1987|pages=184–193|language=it}}

The participation of the Genoese Fleet in the Crusades (particularly the conquests of Antioch and Acre) enriched it enormously. During the First Crusade, the Genoese Republic obtained Acre (one third of the port's incomes) and Gibelet (present-day Byblos, Lebanon), which become a familiar possession of the Embriaco family, who styled themselves as Lords of Gibelet (1100 – late 13th century).{{cite book | last= Thiollet| first = Jean-Pierre | author-link = Jean-Pierre Thiollet | title = Je m'appelle Byblos | publisher = H & D | location = Paris | year = 2005| language = fr| isbn = 9782914266048}}

Other small colonies were formed in Tartous (Syria), Tripoli (Libya), and Beirut (Lebanon). However, the Muslim reconquest in the following century removed Genoese presence from the Holy Land. Genoa also established colonies on the Spanish Mediterranean coast from Valencia to Gibraltar, but these were also short-lived.{{Cite web|url=http://www.giustiniani.info/genova.html|title=STORIA DELLA CITTA' DI GENOVA DALLE SUE ORIGINI ALLA FINE DELLA REPUBBLICA MARINARA|website=www.giustiniani.info}} These colonies consisted usually of a city quarter (or even a single square) with wooden single- or double-floor houses with workshops in the lower floor.[http://www.giustiniani.info/genova.html Structure of the Genoese colonies.] Page at www.giustiniani.info {{in lang|it}}

File:Genoese fortress in Sudak.jpg of Sudak in the Crimea]]

Direct territorial expansion of Genoa began in the 13th century with the occupation of Corsica (annexed in 1284 and kept until the 18th century) and northern Sardinia. Genoa remained dominant in the Tyrrhenian Sea after the decisive naval victory against Pisa in the Battle of Meloria (1284). Genoa had also started to form colonies of Ligurians in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea in second half of the 13th century. The Genoese presence was not based on military occupation, but on economic "concessions" of Genoese and Ligurian families associated with the local traders and dominant classes.[http://www.imperobizantino.it/old/Storia-art25.html The first Genoese settlers] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170324152309/http://www.imperobizantino.it/old/Storia-art25.html |date=2017-03-24 }}. Page at imperobizantino.it

File:Tabarka1.jpg

In the eastern Mediterranean, Genoa was greatly advanced by the Treaty of Nymphaeum (1261) with the Byzantine emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus, which, in exchange for the aid to the Byzantine reconquest of Constantinople, actually ousted the Venetians from the straits leading to the Black Sea. The main Genoese commercial bases were Chios and Mytilene in the Aegean Sea, and Caffa, the major trading center between Mongol-ruled Eastern Europe and Central Asia and Western Europe. Other colonies included Cembalo (modern Balaklava), Soldaio (Sudak), Vosporo (Kerch), while other were located on the Azov Sea, including TanaKhvalkov, E. "A Regionalization or Long-Distance Trade? Transformations and Shifts in the Role of Tana in the Black Sea Trade in the First Half of the Fifteenth Century". European Review of History. 2016. Vol. 23. No. 3. pp. 508–525 (Azov), Matrega (Taman), Mapa (Anapa), Bata (Novorossijsk) and others, on the Abkhazian coast, such as Savastopoli (Sukhumi), or on the Ukrainian coast, such as Salmastro or Moncastro (Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi), Ginestra (now part of Odesa).{{Cite web|url=http://researchomnia.blogspot.com/|title=Researchomnia|website=researchomnia.blogspot.com}}

File:Istanbul asv2020-02 img48 Galata Tower.jpg (1348) at the northern apex of the medieval Genoese citadel of Galata (Pera) in Istanbul, Turkey.]]During the greatest period of expansion, between the 13th and 15th centuries, the Republic of Genoa had many colonies and commercial/military ports in the region where is now present-day Romania. The largest Genoese colonies in the region were Calafat, Licostomo, Galați (Caladda), Constanța, Giurgiu (San Giorgio) and Vicina. These Genoese settlements served primarily to protect the maritime trade routes that made the Republic a power in this area.{{Cite book|last=Heyd|first=Guglielmo|title=Le Colonie Commerciali Degli Italiani in Oriente Nel Medio Evo|publisher=HardPress Publishing|pages=97|language=it}}{{Cite book|last=Iliescu|first=Octavian|title=Revue Roumaine d'Histoire (Contributions à l'histoire des colonies génoises en Roumanie aux XIIIe – XVe siècles)|publisher=Editions de l'Académie de la République socialiste de Roumanie|pages=25–52}}

In 1155, Genoa was given a fondaco (store and market quarter) at Galata (Pera), facing Constantinople, by emperor Manuel Komnenos, although in the following century the relationship with the Byzantine Empire were often strained. In 1201 the city also obtained privileges and quarters from the Kingdom of Armenia. Pera fell to the Ottoman forces in 1453, when all of Constantinople was captured. Meanwhile, Chios remained a fief of the Giustiniani family until the Ottoman conquest in 1566.{{Cite web|url=http://www.giustiniani.info/smirne.html|title=I GIUSTINIANI DI SMIRNE|website=www.giustiniani.info}} There were some 33,000 descendants of the Genoese colonists in Constantinople and İzmir in 1933.[http://www.disp.let.uniroma1.it/kuma/intercultura/kuma11pannuti.html Alessandro Pannuti, "Cenni sugli italiani a Istanbul e la Levantinità] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110927134437/http://www.disp.let.uniroma1.it/kuma/intercultura/kuma11pannuti.html |date=2011-09-27 }} Genoa had also conquered the island of Tabarka off the Tunisian coast, which was held by the Lomellini family from 1540 to 1742. Part of the latter's citizens later moved to Carloforte in Sardinia.

In addition to its possessions in Crimea, the most important Genoese colonies in the Black Sea area were Taman, Copa, Bata, Maurolaca and Mapa, most of them would survive under Genoese rule until the late 15th century.{{Cite web |date=2016-05-01 |title=🕵 Северный Кавказ в древние времена. Шаги племён — Исторический Черкесск |url=http://cherkessk.su/groups/group/14/wiki/Северный%20Кавказ%20в%20древние%20времена.%20Шаги%20племён/ |access-date=2022-03-04 |website=Cherkessk.SU — Исторический Черкесск |language=ru}}

File:Construction of the warehouse of the Genoese in Trebizond.jpg. Painting by Luca Cambiasi, {{circa|1571}}, in the Palazzo Lercari-Parodi in Genoa]]

The decline of the Genoese colonies in Crimea coincided with the Ottoman expansion in the late 15th century. Aside from the Crimean cities, Genoa also lost its lands in the Taman Peninsula, which had belonged to the noble Ghisolfi family. Other losses included the commercial bases of Licostomo in Moldavia and Moncastro near Odesa. The fall of the eastern colonies caused a deep economical crisis which eventually turned into an unstoppable decline for the Republic of Genoa as a major European power.{{cite book|title=Storia di Genova|first= Teofilo|last= Ossian De Negri}} It thus moved its interests in the western Mediterranean, establishing flourishing communities in Cadiz and Lisbon. Genoa, in particular, became an efficient banking base of Habsburg Spain; supplying loans and organizing slave trade as holders of an Asiento. Genoese traders were active in Old Panama one of the main ports on the Pacific, at least until 1671. The Spanish governor of Panama Sebastián Hurtado de Corcuera even recruited Peruvians, Panamanians, and Genoese in Panama to found Zamboanga City after its conquest from the Muslim Sultanates of Sulu and Maguindanao at the Philippines.[https://books.google.com/books?id=grlUBAAAQBAJ&q=Philippines "Imperial Ambition in the Early Modern Mediterranean: Genoese Merchants and the Spanish Crown"] By Céline Dauverd (Published by Cambridge University Press) Chapter 2, p. 68.

The last Genoese colonies disappeared in the 18th century: Tabarka was occupied by the Ottoman Empire (1742), and Corsica was annexed by France after the Treaty of Versailles in 1768. The Republic itself ended in 1797, when it was conquered by the French First Republic under Napoleon and replaced with the Ligurian Republic.

• Stato da Màr

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Category:Genoese colonies

Category:Overseas empires